Best of Youtube / Google Video

[cribble]

Re: Best of Youtube / Google Video

WHOA!

[SimpatiK]

Re: Best of Youtube / Google Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uTypnaP5X4

Ownage personified.

[Gnomad]

Re: Best of Youtube / Google Video

Meh.

[And we'll just put a happy little bush over here.]

Re: Best of Youtube / Google Video

What a great example of a strawperson argument.

[Gnomad]

Re: Best of Youtube / Google Video

I've never understood the militant atheist. I don't believe in any god either, but I'm also not going to waste my time justifying it or arguing it with people that aren't going to understand anyway. I'd rather just live my life.

[Ars Sycro]

Re: Best of Youtube / Google Video

What a great example of a strawperson argument.

I also love the "science is good" while "religion is evil" argument that argues that religion has caused death the world over, neglecting the fact that science has also been the root of some pretty horrible things.

[And we'll just put a happy little bush over here.]

Re: Best of Youtube / Google Video

DO NOT SPEAK OF SCIENTIFIC RACISM!
---
Or that whole Stalin thing.

[Ars Sycro]

Re: Best of Youtube / Google Video

What about the Nazis? Or is that grouped under the racism bunch?

[And we'll just put a happy little bush over here.]

Re: Best of Youtube / Google Video

Naziism is an interesting argument. There are those who contend that it is a Christian movement, but I not so sure it was. Hitler did appoint himself as head of the church at the time, but he never really made an explicit claim to his own faith. It just seems like it was a political move to add some religiosity to his Führer-hood. It seems as though, and I am being really basic here by rereading wikipedia, that he was hostile to Christianity in his private life. I am not really conversant on this, so I am just spreading my ignorance.

He certainly did organize Naziism as a religion. But this is no different than Stalin's religious stylings of his brand of Marxism. The person in the video does not appear to be 'critiquing' this type of religion, but rather ranting about Christianity and Islam, as if those were the only two forms of religion.

[Knifeboy]

Re: Best of Youtube / Google Video

Hitler might have been an atheist. But he used Christianity to control the masses.

Criticizing religion for the amount of deaths it has caused is a pretty lame argument though.

What a great example of a strawperson argument.

How is it a strawperson argument when there are people that actually claim it should be illegal to offend christianity and islam?

[And we'll just put a happy little bush over here.]

Re: Best of Youtube / Google Video

Because he boiled all religion down to fundamentalism, for lack of a better term, in only two religions, and then assumed that Christian and Islamic fundamentalism was the religious voice. There was no nuancing of the theological breadth of religious people. What he did is to misrepresent religious voices in order to make a very simple argument. While there are some Christians who claim that it should be illegal, not every religious person beliefs that.
---

Hitler might have been an atheist. But he used Christianity to control the masses.

I do not know if Hitler was an atheist, or even that he might have been. That seems to be a bit of leap. But his usage of Christianity to control the masses is debatable. He used Christian imagery, and there is no doubt about that. But his 'Christianity' expunged its Jewish legacy; he is a modern day Marcion. The early Christian church labeled Marcion a heretic in the late second century. (Now, there is a lot more going on than just that, but this is the interwebz.) So, one could argue that this is not Christianity, and it has not been Christianity for nearly two millenniums. And while Hitler used something like Christianity to control parts of the masses, other German dissidents used Christianity to challenge Hitler. The most famous of these dissidents would be the Confessing Church and Bonhoeffer.

[Knifeboy]

Re: Best of Youtube / Google Video

Because he boiled all religion down to fundamentalism, for lack of a better term, in only two religions, and then assumed that Christian and Islamic fundamentalism was the religious voice. There was no nuancing of the theological breadth of religious people. What he did is to misrepresent religious voices in order to make a very simple argument. While there are some Christians who claim that it should be illegal, not every religious person beliefs that.
---

???
He very clearly and succinctly states in the beginning of the video EXACTLY the kind of religious people he's addressing?

I do not know if Hitler was an atheist, or even that he might have been. That seems to be a bit of leap. But his usage of Christianity to control the masses is debatable. He used Christian imagery, and there is no doubt about that. But his 'Christianity' expunged its Jewish legacy; he is a modern day Marcion. The early Christian church labeled Marcion a heretic in the late second century. (Now, there is a lot more going on than just that, but this is the interwebz.) So, one could argue that this is not Christianity, and it has not been Christianity for nearly two millenniums. And while Hitler used something like Christianity to control parts of the masses, other German dissidents used Christianity to challenge Hitler. The most famous of these dissidents would be the Confessing Church and Bonhoeffer.

I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to get at, or if you even disagree with what I said.

Was it just a history lesson on how Christianity is almost meaningless because there's a billion different interpretations of what Christianity actually is? Then I agree

[And we'll just put a happy little bush over here.]

Re: Best of Youtube / Google Video

I rewatched the video. His concern is not that he cannot criticize religion, which how we have framed the debate, but that he cannot insult religion. So, we have twisted the terms. I actually agree that one does not have the right to insult religion, and insulting religion should not be condoned by society. This is different from saying that one does not have the right to criticize religion. These are two very different positions, with insulting a religion being an emotional argument. These religious folks should have the right to freedom of religion, and he should have the right to freedom from Christianity and Islam. Their freedom of religion should be protected from malicious insults.

He opens the video by saying to those "mainly Christian and Muslims" who say that he cannot insult their religion. I, of course, believe he does not have this right. Then he begins to make really general statements about religions. He makes religious people sound as though they are judgmental or that they all agree with some sort of guiding, coercive evangelicalism as their goal. He appears to be more concerned, not really with all religious folks, but rather evangelical folks who wish to propagate their religion.
---
I think part of the problem is that we are treating this as some well thought out statement on religion. It just appears to be him ranting about religion. If he stated that his concern was more for those who used religion to support homophobia, then I think that is different argument. Even then one does not have the right to necessarily insult homophobia in religion, but one has the moral duty to criticize it, and make sure that these religious principles do not infiltrate governmental policies in secular governments.

[FeebleFables]

Re: Best of Youtube / Google Video

If you think it's a strawman to not include every type of belief one can have, and think unbelief is a belief, then, ironically, you should be defending the guy in that video. (edit: which it looks like you are now, but changing the issue to 'insulting' not being a right. which is another debate for sure)

As for Stalin/atheism, it's an old argument, and a bad one.

It's impossible to do 'evil' things in the name of atheism, because using unbelief in the name of a cause turns the cause into a belief, which is contradictory, it changes the zero-state into a state. For example, it's impossible for Stalin to have caused atrocities in the name of atheism, because you would have to add more to the equation for it to be an equation: If he killed people for 'believing' then he's not killing in the name of atheism, he's killing in the name of some form of.. anti-believing, which is quite a stretch. In reality, Stalin may have been an atheist, but he was killing in the name of his communist ideology, the same goes for Hitler/Nazism.

This is why the two can't be equated. People kill in the name of their religion all the time. People don't kill in the name of theism though, which is just as ridiculous as killing in the name of atheism. Pretty well the same goes for science, one does not do 'evil' in the name of science, which is just a method of knowledge acquisition. just like people don't do 'evil' in whatever the opposite would be... knowledge-forgetting?

[And we'll just put a happy little bush over here.]

Re: Best of Youtube / Google Video

I believe I said unbelief forms a religion, not religion.

And, evil is a moral/theological term. I am pretty sure those who were experimented on at Tuskegee would call that evil in the name of science. Immoral does not exactly cover the horrors of that event.
---
I see you are still using religion in its more archaic definition that posits religion requiring metaphysics. From a religious studies perspective, atheism can be and is studied as a form of religion.